I accepted the challenge to bake these biscuits using a recipe from 100 years ago in the notebook of photographer Blanche Violet Maher.

There was no Method in the original recipe so I referred to the “Basic Biscuit Recipe” from The Commonsense Cookery Book first published in 1914. I also used my great-grandmother’s *Bakewell mixing bowl. The camera featured in this image is my 90 year old mother’s Box Brownie.

Blanche Violet Maher (b.1874) was an Australian photographer who lived with her family on Collaroy Station in the Upper Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia.

By all reports the biscuits were delicious and reminiscent of Ginger Nuts.

* #BakewellBrothers Ltd was established by William Bakewell, born in England in Nottingham county, who began making bricks and pipes on their Erskineville site in around 1884. The firm gradually developed to include the manufacture of tiles, pots, jars and other domestic and commercial wares.